Pathos

by Koraki

Natalie Kabra needs someone to hold on to, now more than ever. NK/TS

Title: Pathos

Fandom: The 39 Clues

Summary: Natalie Kabra needs someone to hold on to, now more than ever.

Disclaimer: The 39 Clues (c) its respective owners. I'm only having a bit of fun.

Author's note: I wrote this in bits at a time, so you may detect a slight change in writing style. Also, the ending may be a bit hurried, so I apologize in advance for that. Takes place after my own invented end of Cahills vs. Vespers, so this makes this oneshot AU after The Dead of Night.

Rating: K+ (for mild language and some romance)

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance

Characters: Natalie Kabra/Ted Starling, mention of Ian Kabra, Sinead Starling, Amy Cahill, Dan Cahill, Evan Tolliver

.oOo.

The mansion's so vast that if one wanders into the right places – they could be the wrong places too, of course, but it really all depends on one's point of view and what one needs – one finds oneself feeling quite alone. Alone and surrounded just enough to give one a sense of imprisonment, of being captured within a maze or a cavern or some such place, but not so closely surrounded as to feel in any way comfortable or secure. The air is crisp and cool and dry, drafts wafting silently from vents in the floors and ceilings, and if one steps lightly one cannot even be sure of one's own existence. Ever since the true tenants of the house packed up and left, it has made one feel nearly a ghost to go padding down corridors for no good reason.

Thinking of their departure can be almost unsettling for certain reasons, depending upon one's identity. That is to say, if a certain person had been disinclined to involve oneself with the menial tasks of – well, of everyday life, but if one was not an everyday type of person, that was permissible – and if certain others felt more inclined to involve themselves with aforementioned menial tasks – well, that is their decision. They are only lowering themselves.

…Surely, though, it shall task their nerves dreadfully. Her decision is much more logical.

It is not at all as if a certain person needed a formal education of any sort. Not if she is already knowledgeable enough to make her own way in the world.

If she had wanted to go to college the moment she was the "typical" age – the peasant age, that is – she would have been perfectly able to. So there.

Nothing would have stopped her, nothing at all. She'd simply thought that she could use a bit of a break, her teenage years having been so traumatic. The truth was, of course, that she'd rather eat homemade dinner around a small wooden table in someone else's kitchen in the company of her horrid wet-blanket of a brother and that strangely handsome yet remarkably stupid lump of an Ekat who says hardly a word. College? Learning the skills that would help her build astounding technology or amazingly efficient machines, or strategize and win the hearts of a hundred million people with oratory, or, even – bloody hell, why not? – design clothing that captured vibrant colors and patterns and brought them to life in the swish of a skirt, or paint portraits that half appeared to move and breathe and live and grow –

Of course she could have done that.

If she'd wanted to.

Natalie stops quite suddenly – her strides have become agitated, jerky movements, and her footsteps echo all around her now in the deserted hall. She knows that she could admit to herself that she's in denial of the truth, but why bother, after all? She's lived hand-in-hand with denial for years upon years, and it's worked perfectly well for her. It is, after all, far easier for a Kabra to believe that it is their superiority that causes them to choose to be inferior, never mind that that contradicts itself. Admitting the truth – that in her shattered state, she'd not make it through a month away at college without some sort of breakdown – would be much too humiliating. Her condition is degrading enough, something deeply ingrained in the back of her mind whispers to her, without her bringing herself down even further by admitting its existence.

Normal life wasn't exactly easy to catch up with after spending more than a year in that prison. Another year and a half on the run from potential rescuers was no more helpful, and though it quickly became apparent that fleeing would be far less monotonous than day after dull gray day in the dark cell, it became apparent just as rapidly that monotony was far preferable. She'd like to think that she handled her rescue well, behaving dignified as befit a proud Lucian, but that's so very far from the truth that she doesn't even try to tell herself that. She simply doesn't think about that day. (It was a Wednesday in February. It was also her seventeenth birthday.)

Some people with less experience in the area of being kidnapped for three years and watching as almost all of your fellow hostages were ransomed or rescued or shot one by one by one might say with an affable shine in their eye, "But isn't that the most wonderful birthday present of all! It's as if you're getting your whole life back for your birthday!"

Ha. Ha.

No, it isn't.

Natalie leans against the wall, allowing the side of her face to make contact with the rough-textured but surprisingly cool surface. She raises her hand to touch her warm face, and is surprised to find that it's covered by a light sheen of sweat. Kabras don't sweat. The house is silent, no footsteps, no voices, not even an echo. A soft wisp of cold air brushes against her leg and she closes her eyes, taking a ragged breath. She can keep herself together, thank you very much. It's been almost three years since then. She's nineteen years old and perfectly safe. She won't lose it now. She won't, won't, won't, but now it feels futile and her heart rate rises again as she remembers the last few days of her captivity and how they pressed a gun to her head as the Cahills burst into the last Vesper stronghold, and her breaths become short and shallow – it had been so long, and yet she was about to lose it all – but then the rescue group had been there, and before the gun fired someone had tackled her to the floor, and she didn't even think of objecting anymore, her survival instincts had kicked in long before that, and whoever-it-was stayed between Natalie and whatever was beyond them, and – she doesn't want to remember this now, but it's too late to stop the flood of memories – she was sobbing too hard into their shirt to stop and see who it was –

Well, at least she has a fairly good guess of who it was now, not that it makes her life any happier or less awkward. As she says this tartly to herself she feels herself calming down, just a little bit, and takes advantage of this newfound balance to give herself a fine, firm mental slap. This is, of course, precisely the reason that she's decided to hold off on college for the moment, is it not? Well – among other reasons, of course. Her condition is obviously not too terribly debilitating, but she would do well to try and stop these episodes as soon as possible.

Straightening her clothing and professionally pretending to dust a minute speck of dust from her shoulder, Natalie turns herself around and stalks back down the hall, but a mere one and one-half steps into her stride (a pity, really; she's been working on perfecting a nice intimidating stalk, modeled on the one which her brother had maintained for several weeks after Evan and Amy announced that they'd been accepted into the same college and, joy of joys, had found an affordable apartment and were planning on splitting the rent), she is painfully and suddenly reminded of another reason why creeping into the more sneeze-inducing catty-corners of the Cahills' home is not recommendable.

Namely, that a certain attractive, blind-as-a-bat Ekaterina of the surname Starling who may or may not make a habit of saving young British ladies' lives apparently has a morbid fondness for those same sneeze-inducing catty-corners, and has also happened to develop a padding footstep that is nigh impossible to detect if one happens not to be paying quite close attention to one's auditory feedback. The one consolation of this situation – to further elaborate, the situation that involves Natalie Kabra frozen mid-stalk, sending a shocked and accusing gaze directly into the unseeing eyes of Theodore Starling, who looks as if he knows that he's interrupting something, which is perfectly correct, and is quite ashamed of himself, which he should be – is that, no matter how uncanny Ted's senses seem to be at times, he's no clairvoyant.

Feeling most assured in this assessment of her many-times-removed cousin, Natalie opens her mouth and says something stupid before she can stop herself. She's not exactly sure what it is that she says, and as a matter of fact she never will be able to remember exactly what it was, though in less flustered times she'll hypothesize with a deal of confidence that it was a word or several that somehow managed to convey the basic message of "Hello".

Ted still looks at least as perturbed as Natalie feels – ha, serves the snooping little bastard right – but at least he has the manners to stand up a little straighter and say simply, "Hi."

The silence that hovers between them is so awkward that the feeling it inspires somewhere in the area of Natalie's stomach is not very far from actual physical pain. "I haven't seen you around much, except at supper," she offers, trying to break through the suffocating blanket of quiet.

"Haven't seen you around much, either," Ted offers, and a horrified Natalie realizes her verbal faux pas a split second after a funny sort of grin quirks across his face. He seems to almost sense her mortified terror, and covers for her briefly with a chuckle, which only sounds about halfway forced. Well, it seems that American parents must not be quite as neglectful of their children's manners as Natalie has been led to believe, after all.

Her lips are lagging a few steps behind her mind today, and this is proven when, instead of masterfully changing the topic to something that has nothing to do with eyes or seeing, she squeaks in what sounds almost like a bad imitation of Amy Cahill, "Oh – I – I didn't mean it that way – sorry – "

"Don't worry about it." Ted makes an impatient movement with his hand and takes a half-step forward. "I say that all the time. Really, it's nothing."

And then there's silence again.

"It's rude to sneak up on people like that," Natalie remarks snippily, attempting in vain to regain what ground she lost with the Amy imitation.

Ted's eyebrows arch almost immediately, but he scratches his chin methodically for a moment before almost shyly parrying her comment. "I thought I was here first," he offers quietly.

Surprised that she's managed to uncover even an inkling of contrariness in the normally reticent man's nature, the girl tries to elicit another response, her amber eyes beginning to regain the shine that comes naturally to them when she's heavily involved in a light conversation. "Is that so? I'm quite certain that I didn't hear you when I came walking down this way. Who's to say that you didn't just prowl up behind me, hmm?" She shoots a sidewise glance at him through slyly half-closed eyelids – never mind that he can't see her almost friendly challenge. It's all part of the sport of the thing.

"I don't do that." And then Ted is silent for an elongated moment, and just as Natalie begins to fear that the conversation may be falling very flat before it's even had a chance to really pick up its pace, the young man changes the subject very suddenly. "Why were you down here, anyways?" he inquires, and sounds almost bashful in his demand for information. It's something Natalie has noticed about Ted – not only doesn't he talk, he doesn't ask questions, usually.

"Well…" She speaks carefully, pausing often but making sure to keep the flow of her words natural. "I'm not really sure. I suppose that I'm quite fond of these dark, quiet places – they're very peaceful. They lend a sense of clarity to the mind."

"Your mind didn't sound clarified." His voice is low and his sightless hazel eyes seem to be fixed on some point away in the distance, but Natalie feels as if the temperature has dropped several degrees very suddenly.

"You didn't hear my mind!" she cries out before she can catch herself, and folds her arms across her chest, perhaps to warm herself, or perhaps to trap the words that are leaping to her lips unbidden. Why can't she keep a hold of herself? Why?

Ted tilts his head to one side, brushes his hair from his forehead with his right hand, and says quite simply, "I heard you."

Well, there's no defense one can make against that. And so Natalie, arms still tightly folded, heart beginning to race as she begins to feel very much entrapped, tries taking a different tack. "Yes. Well. I've just been having a bit of an off day, Theodore Starling, and I thought that a nice trip to a quiet, uninhabited part of the mansion might just help. But, surprise! – apparently this particular quiet part of the mansion is, as a matter of fact, inhabited. By you. So if you'll excuse me – " She nips nimbly around him, fully intending to flee down the corridor from which she emerged with as much dignity as possible, and then stops quite suddenly.

The reason for this abrupt halt is that, with alarming agility, Ted Starling has caught hold of her arm.

"It's not like that," he exclaims, and plunges on into several sentences more, which impresses Natalie very much, first because she's never heard him do that, and secondly because he has a lovely voice – for an Ekat with a twangy American accent, that is, of course. "You're not okay, after that prison. I wasn't, and I was the first that got out. Look, Natalie, you're acting so strangely and it's bothering Ian, and when he started talking about it to me it started bothering me too." Ted stops abruptly, abashedly, and seems to be summoning the courage to finish his impromptu lecture. "I mean – you've gotten all quiet. And Ian says that you didn't even open your college acceptance letters. And he says you won't talk to him. And Natalie Kabra, we're all sharing this house, and you seem like a good person, but you have to stop whatever it is that you're doing to yourself."

"I'm doing," Natalie Kabra replies coolly, "nothing to myself. Please unhand me." To be completely honest, she is finding Ted Starling more interesting by the second, but that still doesn't excuse this arm-grabbing and uncomfortably intrusive talk.

"Yes, you are." Ted appears to be weighing something in his mind, and then adds, "I know what it's like. Maybe we could – um – talk about it?" He looks nearly petrified at the idea of talking about anything, which Natalie thinks is rather sweet – but that still doesn't excuse the arm-grabbing, much less the suggestion itself.

"There's nothing to talk about," she insists. "Let me go." She pauses to add weight to her final emphatic statement. "Now."

Ted blinks, shifts his feet, and seems to be on the verge of delivering an equally emphatic No, but even before the word has had a chance to make itself heard, he half-shrugs and lets Natalie's arm go with an almost careless, "Okay."

Needless to say, Natalie feels deeply disappointed by this. She hadn't expected him to be shut up so easily, even if he was tight-lipped Ted Starling, and now not only had she lost the thread of animated conversation with a most interesting young man, she also had no excuse not to go wandering ghostlike down shady hallways with no companion besides the sound of her own footsteps. That option looked less and less appealing every minute the young woman stayed with other people and batted words back and forth with them and felt the warmth of companionship, but there was nothing to keep her talking now.

So, quite suddenly – again without fully thinking it over, as she realizes even as the sentence flows out into the air – Natalie Kabra rescinds her former demand and says almost meekly, "Actually, I think I might as well hear what you have to say, Starling." She flicks back a few dark strands of hair and folds her arms securely across her chest again.

He's already begun to turn away from her, but when he hears this he looks back towards her, eyes looking at a nonexistent something that hovers six inches or so above Natalie's head. This blind staring doesn't bother her at all, though it took some getting used to in prison – it is, as a matter of fact, one of Natalie's personal little prides that she has never once commented on the behavior.

"Well," Ted states, sounding as though he's about to set forth into a long, glib speech – and then, of course, he stops speaking for a very long moment, finally capping off this absolutely intriguing opening with a mutter. "I'm…not sure where to start, Natalie."

His voice becomes more quiet near the end of a sentence, she notices abstractly, and even as she observes this she tells him, "You seem to believe that I'm acting – what was the word again?" Natalie's voice sinks to a scathing octave. "Strangely. What exactly does that entail, Theodore Starling?"

"Ian pointed it out first," he begins slowly, eyebrows narrowing infinitesimally, "and then I saw what he meant. I mean, I obviously haven't known you for too long, but we've spent a lot of time near each other during the time that we have known each other, so it's not like we're total strangers…" Natalie realizes, when he pauses, that he's waiting for confirmation of this statement.

"That's quite true, I completely agree. Carry on, Mr. Starling," she tells him, speaking quite blithely.

"Well, we don't know why you're here," Ted says simply, and as though to emphasize his statement with a gesture, folds his arms loosely over his chest.

Despite the fact that Natalie knows exactly what he means – and God, it hurts – she can't help but feel a peripheral twinge of distinct annoyance at what could easily be perceived as a slight, and this is what she pounces on. "I beg your pardon?" the young woman exclaims. "Why should I not be here, Theodore?"

"It's Ted," he finally corrects her, "and I didn't mean it that way. Not to speak for him, but, well, Ian has been nicer than I've ever known him since you two have been living in the same house again. But it was the same way with me and Ned and Sinead. Especially Sinead." Ted laughs abruptly, and the sound echoes around them in the empty hallway. "Amy, Evan, and Ian kept cornering me by turns when they had the time and asking me what I had done to her that made her so different. So, yeah, that sort of thing.

"But what Ian was saying to me – " the man takes a quick breath and sets forth into his talk in earnest now " – was that you had mentioned to him once or twice soon after you got back that you wanted to, well, to go to college. I think what he said was that you'd be talking to him and the conversation would move to that, and you'd say something about having some kind of morbid curiosity about where the working class went for a proper education, and you'd keep on going with that kind of thing." Ted runs his fingers through his hair uncertainly – Natalie has half a mind to tell him that that doesn't at all improve its already messy look – and mutters, "And now you don't talk about anything anymore."

"Why must I speak to either of you?" Natalie demands coldly, doing her best to quell the memories that surge up within her. "I can handle my problems by myself, thank you." And then she wants to snatch those words out of the air and wipe them from anyone's memory, because she didn't mean to say that so very directly.

Surprisingly enough, Ted doesn't make a comment going after her second statement, instead turning his attention to her defensive query. "I don't know. You have a nice voice. You're…um, funny," he offers.

She rather wants to splutter indignantly, but decides that, what with her recent track record of Amy-mimicry and overstating information, she'd best not risk it. "It's the accent making you think that, and I'm not funny," Natalie tells Ted stolidly instead, and then thinks that she might as well make very certain that he knows it. "As a matter of fact, I'm quite serious. All the time."

Of course that would come out sounding more awkwardly than it had seemed it would in her head, and Ted grins widely. Natalie rather wants to sink into the floor and vanish, and to be honest, that's the most interesting thing she's thought of to do with herself in the past month. If only it were possible.

"Okay, Nat, whatever you say." He's apparently attempting to placate her, but this only touches another nerve.

"You Americans and your ridiculous nicknames – wipe that ridiculous smile off your face, Theodore Starling, and why did you take our conversation off of the topic?" Natalie snarls, though she fears it might not be a very sincere snarl, all things considered.

She expects another bout of mumbling and not-quite-stuttering, but apparently he's gained even more confidence, and says, "Well, apparently you can handle your problems by yourself."

"Well, I thought that you thought that I couldn't," she replies pettishly.

"What I said was that Ian was worried that you weren't talking to us anymore." Ted shifts from foot to foot and stretches, hands behind his head. "But if you're doing okay alone, well."

And again there's a long, oddly tense moment of silence.

"Well," Natalie repeats, and wonders why he isn't leaving and why she can't just swallow her pride and admit how sad she's been.

"…Are you sure?" he mumbles as he begins to turn away. His voice sinks to a low, barely distinguishable murmur. "I mean, I – I cried. For hours. Few days after they, after they got me out. Sinead was – " Ted breaks off, shrugs, half-shakes his head, looking nearly embarrassed.

"Well." Now there's a hardness in the back of Natalie's throat, an aching, almost a yearning, and the walls she's built between her mind and her tongue begin to tangibly crumble. "Lucians don't cry. Kabras don't cry. It's not something we do. So."

Ted turns back to fully face her. "But it helps," he offers, and while his unseeing eyes are staring into hers, he seems to be looking at something painfully distant – something in Natalie's own mind, perhaps?

"Not for me," Natalie admits, and tilts her head to scowl stonily at her feet. Ted's gaze remains riveted on where her head was, and she wonders vaguely if he can tell by the pitch of her voice that she's looking away from him now. He gives no sign of it, if he can.

"Then…" Ted seems to be wracking his mind for suggestions now, and that protesting pride inside of Natalie tells her to inform that man that he can stop that and leave, that she doesn't need his help – but something holds her back, and she stays silent as Ted finally says, "Then you should at least talk about it to Ian. I mean…your siblings can be really helpful in this kind of situation. At least, like I said, Sinead and Ned were for me."

"I see," the young woman responds rather stiffly, and before the silence after that comment can grow too intrusive, she adds, "I suppose that I may as well do that, then."

"Yeah." Ted's face relaxes into a smile – not quite a wide grin, more of a comfortable social smile that tells Natalie he's at ease. Some people just don't take the necessary precautions of guarding their emotions, and this makes Natalie want to inwardly scoff at the Ekat; somehow, though, she can't manage to summon up enough mental vitriol to do so. That's slightly perturbing, but at the same time somewhat nice, Natalie reflects vaguely.

Said unguarded Ekaterina is speaking again, and Natalie yanks herself back into reality, alarmed by the fact that she let her attention slip. "Ian will be glad to talk to you, I think," her companion is saying. "He and I have been getting to know each other. He's really nice – funny, too, just like you."

At this comment, Natalie considers inserting a haughty "I am not funny, Theodore Starling" into the speech, but decides against it.

"He wanted to come on the mission to rescue you," Ted continues, "but Sinead was still furious at him for taking all those independent missions without notifying her for the past few years, so she forced him to stay in the Command Center. Ian told me that he handled it with 'decorum', but Sinead says he was so nervous that she thought he was going to start throwing things, and she had to make Evan sit there and say annoying things to distract him. But really, Nat – uh, Natalie, sorry – she says he was really worried about you. And he tells me you haven't said anything to him about all that."

"I don't really need to, you see," she replies rather demurely, again forcibly quelling the first quivers of panic that begin to rise with Ted's last sentence. "But that does sound like Ian, you know. He's really very sweet, if a bit stifling at times – to me, at least. I suppose it's an elder-sibling behavior; Daniel has expressed the same opinion about Amy, on occasion. At least Ian didn't have to worry about my well-being – " Natalie inclines her head forward slightly and smiles, and knows that somewhere inside of her some part of her mind is absolutely shocked at this behavior " – since you were there."

She pats herself mentally on the back as she mentions an event directly connected to her captivity without feeling a shudder – and manages to compliment the Ekat, which, she admits to herself rather shyly, she's pleased to have finally gotten around to doing. She really does just want to be friends with him, of course.

Of course.

And then Natalie Kabra catches a glimpse of the look on Ted Starling's face, and wonders vaguely why he appears to be so confused.

"Uh…" Ted's eyes narrow in thought. "I wasn't there."

Oh.

"Oh," Natalie replies weakly. How is she going to recover from this misstep? "Well, I suppose it was your brother, then." Quickly, quickly, she grasps around for a valid excuse to explain her awkward mistake, eyes darting from side to side. "You…er… I think you use the same cologne."

Ted blinks and his eyebrows arch upwards a few fractions of an inch, but a genuinely amused grin is creeping across his face now. "So Ned somehow made sure you were safe, huh? And you think that we smell the same?"

"For the love of God, Starling," Natalie snaps, feeling hot and irritated. "I don't know if you're trying to insinuate anything with that comment or not, but yes, he did, and yes, you do. I fail to see how that is amusing."

Ted raises his hands defensively, but the grin remains. "I wasn't trying to insinuate anything. Sorry," he replies meekly. "Do you mind if I ask what did happen?"

And Natalie doesn't even really realize what he's asked her – naturally, because he's asked her in all honesty, in the middle of a conversation. He hasn't even been trying to trick her into saying anything, hasn't had any ulterior motive in mind. They're simply batting the tennis ball of conversation back and forth by now, and Natalie Kabra, who has not grasped the significance of the question, volleys back several sentences before she recognizes what she's saying.

Once she does, though, she can't stop herself.

"Well, you see, I was sitting there – there being wherever they'd taken me, I still don't know where it was – and I was blindfolded. So of course I couldn't see anything, and they had sedated me with something earlier; it was wearing off by then, but I was careful not to let them know that. Despite that, they – they were sitting, one on either side of me, and I'm quite sure that by then the rescue group had gotten into the building, but I don't know whether the V-Vespers knew that or not. They were there anyways, not moving, and one of them – " Natalie's beginning to hyperventilate just thinking about it, and her mind screams that she needs to stop stop stop talking and thinking and sensing, she must just curl up and try to shut down, shut up, but it's too late, already she feels the pressure of cool metal against her temple as if it were still there " – and one, one of them had a gun of some sort, and he was h-holding it against my head, and they didn't even know that I was awake…"

Her voice trails away in a whimper, but she won't cry, won't, and she notices with a detached sort of interest that her knees don't really feel up to doing their job anymore; the dark-skinned girl has already crumpled halfway to the floor when Ted realizes that she's falling and lunges forward to catch her. He grabs her clumsily by the shoulders – well, of course he can't see what he's doing – and sets her upright again as best he can. When Natalie begins to topple again, Ted steps forward and wraps her in a huge bear hug. It looks like an instinctive reaction, and this guess is supported by the way that Ted's arms stiffen awkwardly just moments after he's grabbed Natalie. Now, though, the young woman is leaning against him, all of her mental guards crumbled nearly to dust by the memories that, once verbalized, can't be held back.

"Shh," the Ekaterina is saying softly, nervously into her hair – Natalie can't see his face anymore, as her own face is buried against his shoulder. No, she isn't crying. She's not going to do that. She doesn't need to. "If it's making you this upset, Natalie – I've only known you for a few months, you don't need to talk about it to me – do you want to wait for Ian? Do you want me to take you somewhere you can sit down?"

Natalie shakes her head blindly against his shoulder, and turns her face to the side so she can finish speaking. She has to, now that she's begun. "No," she whispers, barely audibly, and clears her throat. "No, you needn't fetch Ian, thanks…" But she can't regain her composure, even though she's desperately trying to. "I need to – need to finish. It's okay if it's you. It's alright."

Ted pats her back, his movements still stilted and awkward, not making Natalie feel in the least bit more calm. As though to atone for this failed act of comfort, he reaches up with his other hand and strokes her head gently. That same part of Natalie's mind that for so long held back her memories – the part that's now been relegated to some deep dark chamber in the back of her head, a nearly soundproof place – would tell her to jerk backwards and slap that enemy peasant's hands away, but Natalie doesn't have the strength to. Nor does she wish to. Physical contact with another person is something that she feels nearly starved of.

"Well, and that was when they all came in," she says vaguely, voice somewhat muffled by his shirt. The panic is evaporating quickly now – Natalie feels surprisingly safe, and her thoughts are astoundingly lucid and calm, if still somewhat detached. "The Cahill rescue group, that is. Right as the door burst open, a gun went off, and for a moment I was certain that it was the gun of my guard, and that I was dead. As I continued to hear the sound of fighting, and failed to feel any sensation of pain, I concluded that I was not. All of a sudden, I felt someone moving about near me, cutting the ropes that bound me to the chair, but the blindfold was still in place, so I couldn't discern who it could possibly be. At that moment, I suddenly felt myself pulled from the chair and flung to the ground, at which point someone – apparently Edward – flung himself upon me. Then a gun reported at a much closer range than the one that first fired had, although neither of us was hit. And then I am afraid that I don't remember much more. I was too busy – well, too busy crying, I suppose, to really care."

"I guess Sinead should've let Ian go on the mission after all," Ted mumbles, hugging Natalie more tightly – she decides it's an unconscious reaction to what she's been saying, and anyways, she still doesn't feel like reprimanding this fellow for the far too many liberties he's been taking throughout their conversation. "It would've helped you, right?"

"Yes, I did miss Ian dreadfully," Natalie says quietly.

In the silence that follows, she hiccups. It's a very small hiccup, barely audible, but it causes the painful hardness in the back of her throat to dissipate. Natalie feels the essence of that angry cyst of sorrow and fear sliding down into her chest like a soft breath of air, and as it fills her lungs, there's a burning sensation somewhere behind her eyes, and then she breathes it all out, the worry and sadness and anger at the rest of the world, whiling their lives away while she suffers alone here, and then, without warning, she is sobbing into Ted Starling's shirt as though her heart were broken. Her crying is completely silent save for an occasional, punctuating gasp or sniff, and somewhere along the line her arms move forward seemingly of their own volition and encircle Ted, hugging him back, pulling him closer. Natalie Kabra needs someone to hold on to, now more than ever.

She doesn't bother to keep track of how long she cries, and never thinks about it afterwards. It's a funny thing, she reflects momentarily, at a brief pause in the flow of tears, how these Starlings seem to be able to catch you at the worst moments. Ever since her rescue, she's been miserable – thankful, true, but miserable. Before that terrifying moment on the cold concrete floor of the prison, where her life flashed before her eyes and a strange Ekaterina boy was the only one there who even cared, she'd never cried so hard in her life. This was only the second time that she'd sobbed her feelings out, and yet this time it felt different. Her tears were born of pure panic in the Vespers' lair, terror that she would not survive, the pent-up fear of the past years spent imprisoned bursting out in one unguarded moment. These tears, though, seem to be carrying out all of the sorrows and cares of the years after that: Natalie's worries, her trepidation at stepping forth into life again, the crippling memories of the horror of captivity – all that is falling from her now.

At last her sobs slow, and she takes deep breaths, calming herself down. The strange feeling of detachment from her surroundings that enabled her to finish her tale is gone now, along with the panic of earlier. Now she is vividly conscious of her surroundings, of Ted's arms wrapped securely around her shoulders, of her own arms locked behind his back, of the smell of that cologne that his brother uses too, and, most intriguing of all (Natalie cannot fathom why), the feeling of his rhythmic heartbeat against her cheek.

Natalie reflects to herself that she really should hug people more often, particularly strangely attractive Ekats.

At this thought, a sort of hiccup-giggle hybrid rises in her throat and bursts from her mouth with a noise akin to that of a mouse's squeak. Ted Starling's hug relaxes somewhat, and he steps back half a pace, tilting his head downwards. His blind hazel eyes aren't quite focused on hers, Natalie observes, as she removes her face from the impromptu little burrow it's made for itself in the upper-left area of Ted's dark green shirt, but the intensity of concern in them is unmistakable.

"Are you okay, Natalie?" he asks, auburn eyebrows knitting together earnestly, and when her reply is not forthcoming, he regains that half-step that he gave up a moment ago, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. "Do you need me to get Ian for you, or do you – "

Ted stops speaking abruptly, a perplexed look still stamped upon his face, as he stares unseeing into Natalie's face.

Natalie's heart flutters, completely inappropriately; yet she's shocked at the sheer brightness of the feelings that are welling up inside her now, unquenched by any darkness or pain or sorrow. Perhaps Ted has felt it too, and maybe that is why he is silent now as the two young people stand barely inches apart, each one's face tilted towards the other's.

"Theodore Starling," Natalie says, almost scolding. She still cannot be angry at him. She cannot even manage to become faintly aggravated – a new first. "Theodore Starling, why are you so – so – "

Just at that moment, words fail her, too.

Dazzled by the unfettered blaze of mixed emotions, overwhelmed all of a sudden by unfathomable joy and love and who knows what else – Natalie realizes with a sort of thrilled shock that this is not what a Kabra ought to be feeling like at all, and discards that thought without a care – the girl tosses back her hair and stares into Ted's face. He really is too handsome for anyone's good, the stupid fumbling cute Ekat who wears the same cologne as his stupid triplet brother and who held her while she cried and asked her if she needed her brother or needed to sit down and hasn't even said a word about the rumpled state of his nice shirt, and Natalie decides that she would very much like to kiss him.

So she does, reaching up around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair – oh, and he must have had the same idea, because he's leaning down, his gentle hands on her shoulders sliding to her back, now embracing her. Natalie makes a mental note to talk to him about how he can try and make eye contact despite his blindness, and then their lips touch, and the idea flies out of her mind and memory altogether. It's the first time she's been kissed since she was thirteen, at a dance with some well-do-do rich fellow from the boys' boarding school just down the road from her own. She's afraid that she might be out of practice, but the pressure of Ted Starling's warm mouth against her own, the warmth that flows between them, the light that has shone out from the shadowy veil lifted by her tears. Natalie is almost painfully aware of every sensation, from the heat of Ted's arms around her to the cool air whispering past her legs, and when they part and his soft breath tickles her cheek, she wants nothing more than to push that troublesomely handsome fellow up against the wall and give him another kiss.

But "Ian," Ted murmurs, though he doesn't move away from her.

"Hm?" Natalie inquires, settling for hugging him again; in the process of doing this, she remembers what havoc she wreaked upon his outfit. "Oh, Theodore, I've gone and ruined your shirt."

"That's okay. I think it was worth it," he says quietly, a smile growing across his face. "Ian's calling you. I think he's in the kitchen."

"Well." At last Natalie steps away from Ted, and what she's just done begins to sink in. Surprisingly, she feels fairly good about it. "Well, Theodore, I had better go and see what my brother needs. Then I must begin to assemble what evidence of a proper education I have, and send forth applications to several colleges. I intend to go to school the peasant way." She flashes him a bright and genuine smile, and doesn't let it fall when she remembers that he can't see it.

"Want any recommendations?" he asks, as they set off down the hallway. Natalie notices that she is holding his hand, and wonders vaguely when that happened, but doesn't feel the need to do anything about it.

"That would certainly be helpful, Theodore," she replies.

"Well, as you know, I went to Yale. I took some classes online before the Vespers became a notable threat, and then after we dealt with that, I finished up my school in a few years."

"Yes, yes, typical Ekaterina genius." They round a corner of the hall, and Natalie's voice echoes back through the passage that they've just vacated. "I know, I know, Mr. Starling."

And then the corridor is empty again, silent and cold and dark. Somehow, though, it seems much less so than it did before. For now the echoing, drafty space carries the feeling of an uncommon light, a light that perhaps cannot be seen by the eyes, but is rather felt, like a ray of sun warming the skin. Here a hopeless young woman has wandered alone, and been found. Here a sorrowful young woman has cried, and been gathered into the arms of a ready friend. Here a frightened young woman has exposed her fear, and had it chased away with love and compassion.

Here has shone a light.

.oOo.